


padanaram brook

by Sway



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Post 6x07, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:04:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sway/pseuds/Sway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Say it. Say it to my face.”</i>
</p><p> <i>“The deal fell through.”</i></p><p> </p><p>sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7724539">white turkey</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	padanaram brook

**Author's Note:**

> Again, my deepest thanks go to [sal-si-puedes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes) (go check out her fics!!!) for the moral and grammatical support. I'm quite literally my own worst critic and she always talks me off that ledge, so... thank you. 
> 
> It's not 100% necessary to read 'white turkey' but for context's sake, you might wanna take a look. There's fries, so... who doesn't like fries.

“Mike, I need you to sit down.”

Harvey hates how his voice sounds in here, flat and tired. The visitation rooms are soundproof and the walls reflect his words back at him at an odd angle.

“What’s wrong?”

Mike knows. The kid isn’t stupid. If Harvey looks anything as miserable as he feels, there is no way in hell that Mike doesn’t notice.

Harvey hasn’t slept in two days, has had another panic attack after Cahill had left his office, and has thrown up this morning before coming here. 

It’s pathetic. He’s a grown man. Who just needs to tell his best friend that despite all efforts he will do the whole two years in prison. No big deal. Once more he’s going to rip the floor out from underneath another person’s feet; first his dad and now Mike.

Harvey swallows, laces cold and clammy fingers together beneath the table. 

“Are you all right? You look like shit,” Mike says.

“Mike, there’s something I need to tell you.” Empty words.

“No.” Mike understands immediately.

“I’m sorry, Mike.”

“Say it. Say it to my face.”

“The deal fell through.”

When Mike jolts to his feet, he tips over the chair, the clatter of metal on concrete impossibly loud in the small room. “What the fuck happened? I thought you were… I thought Cahill was on our side.”

“He is. But he’s also on his side. And his side has a star witness who came forward on his own.” This is easier. Facts of the case are easy, almost impersonal. 

“So they don’t need me anymore,” Mike states.

“They don’t need Kevin.”

“Goddamn it, Harvey,” Mike slumps against the wall with his back to Harvey. For once, Harvey is glad he doesn’t need to see Mike’s face, doesn’t need to see the disappointment.

“I’m sorry, Mike. I…”

“I don’t want to hear your apologies.” Mike turns around again. There are tears glittering in his eyes, making them shine very blue, but there is also fire there. And a whole lot of anger. “I want you to tell me there is another way.”

“There isn’t…”

“There _has_ to be.” 

“I’m…”

“Don’t.” Mike holds out a hand. “You don’t understand, do you? What’s it like to be in here.” The anger dissipates from his voice and is replaced by short-leashed rage. “Every morning, I wake up in that cell, and I wonder what kind of curveball I get to dodge on that particular day. What kind of shit Gallo is going to pull on me. What kind of lie I have to tell Kevin to make him believe me.”

Harvey can’t stay in his seat any longer, rounding the table. “Mike…”

“I have betrayed the only friend I have in here. Over and over again. Only to have some white collar jackass waltz into the SEC’s office, pretending to be the good guy in all of this.”

“I will get you another deal.” It’s the last straw. And a very thin one at best.

“You know what? Forget it. You couldn’t make this one happen. What makes you think the next one will go any better?”

“Mike, please…” 

“Enough, Harvey. I’m done. I’m done jumping through your hoops just so you can stop feeling guilty about me being in here.”

Harvey halts mid-step. “You think this is about me?”

“When isn’t something about you?”

“That’s not fair.”

Mike huffs a laugh that has no humor. “No, it’s not. It’s as unfair as me being in here.”

“And you think I haven’t tried everything to get you out?”

“If you had, I would be packing my bags already.”

Mike’s anger is infectious. Harvey just isn’t sure if it’s directed at Mike or at himself. “You might want to watch your tone.”

“Why? What do I have to lose? I’m already in jail.”

Harvey steps up to him, towering over him with an authority he doesn’t quite feel. “If you think that I wouldn’t do everything to get you another deal, think again. If I could, I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

“So you can play the martyr? No thanks.” Mike pushes past Harvey and knocks on the door leading to his side of the legal system. “Guard!”

“I’m not playing the martyr. I am doing this because I lo…”

Mike hits him.

It’s not the blind abandon from a few weeks ago, the badly aimed swings backed up by hopelessness and fear.

This is an open-handed slap that’s sure to leave an imprint. On Harvey’s face and on _them_.

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“Everything okay in here?” One of the guards steps in, eyeing the scene dubiously.

“Yeah, we’re good.” Harvey tries not to reach up to his face although his cheek stings like hell. 

Mike makes the pain worse. “Actually, we’re done. I want to go back to my cell, please.” He’s already out the door when he turns halfway back to the guard, perfectly within Harvey’s earshot. “And make sure Mr Specter finds his way out.”

 

*

“What do you mean, I can’t see him.”

Another sleepless night. Another 69 mile ride. 

And now Harvey faces the most stoic expression Correctional Officer Wendy Boyle has to offer.

“I didn’t say you can’t see him. I said, he doesn’t want to see you. He revoked your visitation rights.”

“I’m his goddamn lawyer.”

“He has a Miss Jessica Pearson listed as his attorney.”

“Bullshit.”

She sighs. “It’s what it says here.”

“Can you call inside and check?”

“Sir, if you’re not on the list, you’re not going in. And you don’t get to make demands. So…” She gestures at the door.

Harvey leans against the counter, knowing he’s pushing what little luck he has left. “Can’t you just… pick up the phone and check? Please.”

Again, that sigh. When she speaks, each words comes as its own sentence. “Mr Specter, if you’re not on the list…”

He leaves without hearing the rest of that sentence. He can’t stand hearing her say it again. 

 

*

Harvey doesn’t blame Mike. 

He understands.

It still hurts. 

It hurts that he has to drive home without having talked to Mike.

It hurts that he can’t apologize for… all of it. 

Getting Mike’s hopes up. 

Making a promise and breaking it. 

Using him. 

Harvey drowns it in a glass of Macallan when he gets home. And then he has two more.

It still hurts.

 

*

Harvey goes back to Danbury the next day.

Mike still doesn’t want to see him.

He goes back the following day and the day after that.

On the third day he stops asking. 

He sits down in the waiting area for an hour along with a mother of two and an elderly gentleman. He watches them go in, the woman to visit her husband, the gentleman to see his son. He envies them even if the young mother returns with tears in her eyes, trying to comfort her children rather than herself. The man looks rather resolved, like he’s been doing this a long time now, and Harvey envies him, too. 

On day four he stops caring about how pathetic he looks. 

On the ninth day, Correctional Officer Wendy Boyle brings him a coffee that tastes like shit but he drinks it anyway. 

He goes up there every day.  
Drives the 69 miles north.  
Sits there for an hour.  
Drives the 69 miles south.

He knows that everyone knows.

Jessica knows when she is assigned to be Mike’s new attorney. She doesn’t say anything, just gives Harvey a look which he returns with a nod.

Louis knows because Harvey doesn’t ask him for favors anymore.

Donna knows and thankfully, she doesn’t say anything either. She just makes sure that Harvey’s afternoons are cleared.

He goes up there every day for two months.

Then he goes up there every Wednesday for almost a year.

Then he goes up there every first Wednesday of the month.

Until he goes up there on a Tuesday.

 

*

“You look like shit.”

For a moment it irks Harvey that Mike isn’t surprised to see him there. There in the same spot where he dropped him off two years ago.

“It’s all the overtime I have to do because one of the junior partners at my firm got himself arrested.”

It’s fake banter and they both know it. But it’s all Harvey can do not to lose himself in looking at Mike again. 

Two years. 

He still has his hair cropped short, of course he does, and he has lost weight, a result of sports rather than a diet. He looks older, the boyishness edged out of his features, making way for an unexpected reservedness.

“You’re looking good,” Harvey says and he means it. Mike is looking better than he himself feels.

“Thanks.” A pause.” What do you want, Harvey?”

“Give you a ride.” Harvey nods at the car he’s leaning against. “And to give you this.”

For a long moment, Mike just stares at him as if he’s insane. There is a split-second in which Harvey is sure he sees the fraction of a smile ghost over Mike’s otherwise stern expression. “A milkshake isn’t going to cut it, Harvey.”

“I know.”

Mike takes the salted caramel monstrosity nevertheless without giving Harvey so much as a second glance. “Let’s go then.”

 

*

They’ve only made it about a mile from Danbury, and aside from a few houses in the distance, there is nothing but shabby fields surrounding them.

“Stop the car.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Stop the goddamn car. Pull over. Now.”

Harvey does so, pulling the car to the side of the road. Mike leaps out of the car even before Harvey has killed the engine, bringing a dozen or so yards between them.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Harvey follows him but stops when Mike turns around to him, all bottled up rage.

“With _me_? What the fuck is wrong with _you_?” 

Before Harvey can even think about an answer that might make sense, Mike is yelling at him. Not words, just an inarticulate scream he’s been sitting on for the past twenty-four months. “Two years, Harvey. Two fucking years.”

“You never said I couldn’t come up here.”

Mike laughs bitterly. “Oh no. Don’t lawyer me. Not with this.”

“I’m not. You know why I came here.”

“Harvey…”

“No, Mike. Maybe you didn’t want to hear it back then but you’re going to hear it now. I came here because, while you gave up on me, I never gave up on you. If you want to call me martyr, that’s fine, but there has not been a day I didn’t wish I was in there and not you.” Harvey knows he’s probably going to far but it’s been two years and if he doesn’t say it now, he never will. “Did I sometimes wish I had never hired you? All the time. But then I remembered that I never would have gotten to know your brilliant mind, and that’s worth every risk we’ve ever taken. So I came here and I sat there and I had their shitty coffee because you’re my best friend. And I goddamn love you.”

Mike doesn’t say anything for a long time and Harvey isn’t even sure if he wants him to. 

When Mike does speak, his voice almost breaks and he doesn’t bother hiding the tears in his eyes. “Damn it, Harvey.” 

He turns away from him and stalks across the field where he sits down in the damp grass near a meekly flowing brook.

Harvey doesn’t know if he should follow but does it anyway. “Mike…,” he says carefully, his voice sounding as alien as this whole thing feels. He has exhausted himself in the past two years, going through all the possible reactions and responses, but this hadn’t been on the list. 

“Don’t just stand there. I’ve had enough people lurking in my back. Sit.” Mike’s tone is gruffer now but when he glances over his shoulder, there is nothing but fatigue in his expression. “Please.”

Harvey does, shifting until he finds a somewhat comfortable position on the bumpy ground. 

“It’s not that I didn’t want to see you,” Mike begins slowly, “I just couldn’t. I was so… I was pissed. And disappointed. I knew it wasn’t your fault but I… I guess I was looking for someone to blame and in that moment, it was you.”

Harvey can’t help but smile. “Been talking to the counselor, haven’t you?”

Much to Harvey’s relief, Mike matches his expression and there is a flicker of the old Mike again. “I’m surprised Julius didn’t ask if we were dating.” He sobers again. “I was so angry. And wanted to be angry. It made me feel like I was doing something.”

“Did it help?”

“At first. And then I was…,” Mike clears his throat, twice, “I was too proud to call you. I tried to write a letter once but… I didn’t know what to say. Or if you even wanted to hear it. And when they told me you were coming up here all the time, I… two years? Are you out of your mind? I was so ungrateful. I yelled at you and I hit you and I treated you like shit and what did you do? You came here and you sat there even if I didn’t let you see me and now you’re here and you tell me you…”

“Stop it, Mike,” Harvey interrupts what sure is about to become a tear-filled ramble and he can’t have that. He can’t see Mike cry to save his life. “One more word from you and I’m going to get into that car and I’m going to leave you here.”

Mike shuts up and swallows loudly. “Will you give me money for the bus?”

“You’re still young. You can walk,” Harvey shoots back.

“It’s 70 miles.”

“It’s only 69. I should know. I’ve driven them for the past two years.”

He feels Mike look at him but he doesn’t return the gaze. Instead he looks out across the field, for the first time in two years feeling something close to being at ease.

“Mike, I did what I had to do,” he continues after a long pause. He raises a hand when Mike tries to get a word in. “You were right. I felt guilty. You went to prison, for God’s sake. And I did use you. And then I made a promise to you and couldn’t keep it. So I did what I had to do.”

“God, we’re a mess.”

“Can’t say I disagree.” Harvey also can’t say when the use of the word ‘we’ has made him any happier.

“I’m sorry, Harvey,” Mike says then.

“Me, too.”

Mike nods. 

They sit in silence for a while until Harvey speaks again. “Since your first day at the firm.”

“What?”

“You asked me how long. And I said I didn’t know. I know now. It was your first day.”

For a long moment, Mike just looks at him. “Not the first time we met? Didn’t I dazzle you with my charm and my good looks?”

“Good thing you didn’t lose your lip in prison.”

“Got it split twice, though.”

Harvey turns turn toward him and can actually spot the most recent of the two where it has left a pale scar. “You had already thrown in the towel like the wuss that you are. And I went after you in the lobby to talk you out of it. I’ve never gone after anybody before. And I haven’t since.”

Mike grins at him. “That’s strangely romantic.”

“I know. Makes me sick.”

“You know what would also be strangely romantic? If you took me back to the city and treated me to a nice steak dinner. You know...for leaving me in prison and all that.”

“You really do need to rub it in, don’t you?”

“I very much do.” Mike clambers to his feet, then holds out a hand to Harvey. When he takes it, he never wants to let go again.

They walk back to the car and Harvey is about to open the passenger side for him when Mike’s hand closes around his wrist. “It’s not going to be easy, you know. This. I can’t just…”

“It’s just dinner, Mike.” He gives him his best smirk. “Besides, I’m not putting out for a convict anyway.”

Mike reaches for the lapel of Harvey jacket and pulls him in for a kiss. It’s quick and chaste and tastes like a promise.


End file.
